KRASNAVA POLYANA, Russia — Sage Kotsenburg and Jamie Anderson may have taken slopestyle into the mainstream of American sports.

Halfpipe was already here, thanks to competitions at four Olympics, and a superstar like Shaun White. But slopestyle? Many Americans might not have heard of it until Bob Costas last month said it was a "Jackass sport," an allusion to the MTV television series and subsequent movies that featured wild, crazy and often stupid stunts.

About the only similarity that remains is that Johnny Knoxville and his crew might be having just as much fun as the American snowboarders.

"It's pretty much playing. We're pretty much snowboarding on a playground up there. It's hard to find that balance between the competition and staying true to yourself, and remembering why you started it in the first place," Anderson said.

But what Kotsenburg and Anderson showed, in winning gold medals in the Games' opening weekend, might have been the perfect sell to pitch their sport to a broader audience who might only catch it for one week a year during the X Games.

"It's such a spectacular and fun sport to watch for anyone, whether you know skiing or snowboarding or not. You turn on your TV and you see slopestyle going on, and it's just absolutely amazing, spectacular to watch," U.S. coach Mike Jankowski said. "I hope everyone can see and feel through their televisions or computer screens really that camaraderie, that love of the sport that all these athletes have."

And that it's bigger than just flips and spins. Yes, slopestyle is dangerous — just ask Czech rider Sarka Pancochova who cracked her helmet on a nasty fall in Sunday's finals — but it might have more in common with ice skating, the most traditional and stodgy of winter sports, than most would imagine.

This is a sport whose winners are determined solely by the discretion of judges, and who showed this weekend they value artistry — or "style" in boarding terms — as much as the sheer volume or difficulty of the tricks.

"Jamie just has the smoothest style out of anyone," said teammate Karly Shorr, who finished sixth. "She's just so, so smooth. So strong. That's how I want to look when I snowboard. Everything she does is sick."